Cookie-Cutter Metal : Check List ****<i> Great Balls of Fire</i> ***<i> Good Vibrations</i> **<i> Maybe Baby</i> *<i> Running on Empty </i>

* 1/2POISON. “Open Up and Say Ah.” Enigma. A little competence can get you a long way. L.A.’s Poison is competent enough to sling stock neo-metallic riffs and construct songs around them, resulting in cookie-cutter sounds that go gold.

Here’s a band as proud of its make-up and mousse techniques as any musical skills it might have. Steal a little from Aerosmith, but never push the envelope; pinch from Kiss, but look pretty, tie it up in a pseudo-rebellious little package with an album cover--a tiger-woman with a foot-long tongue--that gets you banned from Wall-Mart stores and you’ve got the latest edition of fist-in-the-air “yeah man!” rock ‘n’ roll for boys and girls.

There’s no need to come up with original titles, either. Just swipe from Neil Diamond for “Love on the Rocks” and Brooooce for “Look but You Can’t Touch” (same theme, barely half as clever). There’s the occasional catchy track, like the first single “Nothin’ but a Good Time,” but the mediocrity seeps in quickly.

When they get their chance to give an extra kick to the tame Loggins & Messina hit “Your Mama Don’t Dance,” they botch the job, just turning up the fuzztone--about as toxic as a Twinkie. And the kids will eat it up.

The sensitive, exposed moment comes in the sludgy ballad “Every Rose Has Its Thorns” (do tell). But the flower’s plastic product, like everything else here.